The Pirate Queen
by Livewire1306
Summary: After a failed attempt on her life, Aria T'Loak finds herself on an unfamiliar space station with only her wits and her skills to defend herself. Set around three hundred years before Mass Effect, but there will be jumps in time as it goes on.
1. Prologue

Not for the first time in her life, Aria T'Loak was running through the streets of Nos Astra with a dozen mercenaries chasing after her. Unlike all the other times however, she was in way over her head. She rounded a corner, scattering a pile of crates as she did so in an attempt to delay her pursuers. She had been so stupid to accept that contract – of course, Aria knew it was bad from the start – but she needed the credits, and she wasn't going to sink to dancing in sleazy bars to get them.

The people in the streets flattened themselves against the walls when they saw the asari running past, although this being Illium it wasn't a rare occurrence to see a situation like Aria's. Corporations were always trying to gain an edge over their rivals, and since most of them provided manpower and tech for Illium's law enforcement, any corporate espionage that spilled onto the streets was largely ignored. Local police units would be alerted to clean up after things had calmed down, after which an enquiry would be launched and the local officers reprimanded for not responding sooner. Usually this was done so the officers higher up the chain, most of whom were being paid off by Illium's corporations, could keep their jobs without fear of reprisals from their backers.

Aria knew all of this, and right now she was cursing it. Couldn't one decent officer help her out for a change? Making her way past a group of salarians in deep conversation, Aria spied the signs for the docks and began to push through the crowds towards it. There was only one way she was going to get out of this without getting tangled up even further with her employers, and that was to start again somewhere else.

A gunshot echoed behind her, and Aria felt the air around her head ripple. Too close, she thought, sprinting around another corner. She needed to get off Illium. Her former employers had contacts everywhere, but they were chasing a fake identity. Still, Aria reasoned as she snapped off a couple of rounds at her pursuers, she needed to get as far away as possible. Disappear completely.

The entire job had been a set-up from start to finish. The details had been hazy at best – her employers seemingly only wanted her to execute an official that wouldn't play ball with them – but things took a turn for the worse after Aria had found her target already dead, and a squad of mercenaries waiting for her instead. She guessed it was someone that had wanted revenge for performing a hit on their family or friends. People always got irritatingly emotional when she killed somebody in front of them. Although admittedly she had lacked finesse on some occasions, it had still been funny to send that salarian flying out of his penthouse with a flick of her biotics on her last job.

Aria was brought out of this reverie by another gunshot - this one shattering a pane of glass in front of her. She berated herself for losing focus again, and dived into the cover of the crowds. Forcing her way through the hustle and bustle of the central streets, she made her way over to the fringes to quickly examine her situation. The mercs were closer than ever now. Aria could see the perspiration on the commander's face as the batarian forged a path towards her, bellowing at his men to find her. It was time for drastic measures. Ducking through a doorway, the asari pushed aside the complaining shopkeeper and ran up the steps to the balcony, taking them three at a time.

Aria emerged back into the bright sunlight of Nos Astra, and was greeted with a hail of bullets from below followed by the screams of the crowd as they ran in all directions to get away from the mercenaries. Chips of the wall spat up at Aria and she took off across the gardens and balconies, vaulting walls and throwing any occupants aside. After several minutes of running, a row of plant pots shattered, and a turian was struck in the arm moments later. Aria leapt over the nearest wall and huddled down against it, bullets flew all around her - drilling into the wall behind her or else flying overhead. Pulling her pistol from its holster, she rose to her feet and fired off a full thermal clip at the mercenaries behind her. Two were struck in the head, and another was thrown to the floor with a bullet in his chest. Aria took her opportunity to carry on with her escape, but she knew she didn't have long before they would continue the pursuit.

She was approaching the docks, and Aria found a sudden spurt of energy when she saw the signs. Although her commando training had bolstered her endurance, she was beginning to tire. The mercs had been chasing her for miles since their ambush failed, and it was starting to tell. Her breathing was growing ragged – each breath more painful than the last – and each step sent scorching pain down her legs. Aria dropped back down into the streets, slowing her fall with her biotics and landing easily amongst the crowds. The mercenaries would pick up the trail soon though.

Her eyes darting around wildly for an escape route, Aria spotted a freighter being loaded around half a mile away. She darted forwards, pushing her way through the crowd of merchants and their bodyguards and dockworkers and officials, hoping to lose her pursuers in the crowd. The freighter was close now. Aria could see the owner – a volus – arguing with the dockworker operating the crane. A crate was suspended halfway between the ship and the docks, and it was just high enough for her to reach it.

A burst of gunfire rang out behind her, and the crowd scattered. Her cover blown, Aria leapt onto the side of the crate, scrambling out of sight just as the volus turned to see where the sound of the bullets came from. Aria lay on top of the crate, her lungs on fire and her legs cramped and sore. She felt blood dripping from her face, and found that a bullet had grazed her cheek and cut a thin line across it. All she had now was the pistol at her waist and the clothes on her back.

But, Aria thought as she watched the mercenaries set off in the opposite direction to the freighter, she had survived. She was still breathing. She was still alive.


	2. Stowaway

Aria's finger tightened nervously on the trigger of her pistol. The crew of the freighter were combing the cargo hold for her after a camera spotted her soon after the ship left Illium. She only had one thermal clip left, and although she still had her biotics she couldn't take on the entire crew of a freighter with them. A merc passed by, eyeing the dark corner where Aria was hidden. A flashlight flickered into life in his hand, dancing towards the asari. Aria aimed down the sight, preparing to fire the moment she was seen.

"Jhona, what are you doing?" A turian merc wandered into view. The flashlight stopped inches from Aria's face. "You seriously think she's hiding in a corner?"

"It's a dark corner," the merc with the flashlight shrugged. "You really want to take any chances here?"

"We've been here for hours," his companion sighed. "If we haven't found her by now, we're not going to."

"You want to let some asari bitch wander around on this ship?" Jhona shook his head. "It's on your head Thorus."

"Yeah, yeah. Come on, game of Skyllian Fives?" The mercs wandered away. Aria realised she had been holding her breath the whole time and finally let it out, gasping with relief. She considered her options for a moment: either she could hide here until she was eventually discovered, or the ship docked somewhere; or else she could take over the ship, somehow.

Figuring it would only be a matter of time before the crew found her anyway, Aria stepped out of the shadows and made her way through the cargo bay. She pressed up against the door and listened carefully.

"- so you see, it's not that I don't like the work," a muffled voice was saying. "It's just that I want to get out there, explore my horizons you know? Galaxy's my oyster and all that."

"That is the most idiotic pile of shit I have ever heard," another voice replied. "Why bother giving up an easy job guarding a freighter? Who's going to try and steal this pile of junk?"

Aria kicked the door open and stormed through, pistol raised. The two mercs spun to face the asari, hands scrambling for their weapons. Aria lined up her pistol and sent a bullet straight through the first mercenary's head. In the blink of an eye she closed the distance between her and the second merc, sending him tumbling to the ground with a biotic-infused punch.

"Now listen here," she hissed, kicking the turian's shotgun out of reach and crushing his windpipe with her boot. "You're going to tell me everything I want to know, or you end up like your friend here. Understood?"

The merc gargled, nodding furiously. Aria sighed and released some of the pressure on his neck. "What… what do you want to know?"

"Which way to the bridge?"

"Down that corridor, then take the elevator up three floors," the merc pointed down the corridor.

"And how many mercs are there?"

"No- ahhh!" Aria cut him off with a stamp on his neck. "There aren't any, I swear!"

"How many are on this ship then?" She dug her heel in a little more, then released it to let him speak.

"Only a handful," the merc gasped, tears running from his eyes.

"Numbers," Aria kicked the turian across the face and felt something crack. The mercenary howled in pain, and she stamped on his neck again to shut him up.

"Maybe, ten or twelve," he gasped when Aria finally let him breathe again. She dug her heel in again. "Ten, okay! There are ten of us!"

"Thank you for your cooperation," Aria smiled sweetly, then put a bullet through his forehead. She grabbed his shotgun and searched through the two bodies for any thermal clips, unhappily consigning herself to the three spares she had found. The asari made her way down the corridor the merc had indicated without incident. The crew wouldn't be down here until the ship docked and the cargo had to be unloaded anyway.

Aria called the elevator down to the cargo bay, her eyes flashing up and down the corridor. The lights flickered suddenly, and she heard a whine of gears from the elevator, followed by a crunch. The panel next to her showed that the elevator had lost power. Aria kicked the door in frustration, and began to look around for a new way to the bridge. Her eyes passed over a ventilation shaft, and she smiled grimly as she began to remove it. At least they wouldn't see her coming, she thought, clambering into the vent and making her way up a maintenance ladder.

The asari slid through the vents without much issue, only pausing once or twice when she heard mercenaries moving below her. Just as she reached the bridge, and alarm began to wail around the ship. Somebody must have found the mercs in the cargo bay. Aria swore, and hit out at the vent. Unfortunately, the spot she hit was old and rusting, and disintegrated when she struck out at it. Several meters of the vent collapsed under her, and then crashed to the ground in next a group of astonished mercenaries in the freighter's mess hall.

Before any of them could react, Aria sent three of the eight flying into a wall with her biotics where they sank to the ground and lay still. Scrambling to her feet, Aria dived over the vent and managed to dispatch another with her shotgun before the mercs raked the vent with gunfire. Aria crawled along on all fours to a nearby wall while the mercs emptied clip after clip into the vent. After five minutes, it went quiet, though Aria's ears were still ringing.

"Do you think she's dead?"

"Can't have survived that."

"Go and check."

"I'm not doing it on my own!"

"I'm not doing it on my own…"

"… Sir."

"Hulse, Kaile, go and make sure she's dead. Ilon, see if those three are still alive."

Aria peeked out from behind the wall and saw a merc flipping a coin with his sour-faced companion. Another was kneeling by the three mercs at the wall, and turned to speak to the last merc – a thickset batarian wielding a massive shotgun in one hand and a cigar in the other.

"Boss, they're dead."

"Shit," the commander tapped his earpiece. "Kos, I've got four dead men down here, we need to talk about a new wage… Well you never said… Yeah, but… Fine. Hulse, go and make sure she's dead. Now!"

The batarian's four eyes blinked stupidly at his commander, then he nodded and clambered over the vent. As soon as he saw Aria, she obliterated his face with a blast of her shotgun. She swung it to the second mercenary at the remains of the vent, opening up his chest with another blast. The commander pulled his own shotgun around to face her, but Aria managed to put up a biotic barrier just in time to deflect the shot. She collapsed to her knees, her energy drained from blocking such a powerful shot.

Aria threw herself away from another blast of the commander's shotgun, then screamed in pain when a bullet caught her in the shoulder. The mercenary on the other side of the room opened fire, and Aria began to crawl away from the fire that was once again tearing through the vent. Another bullet skimmed the back of her thigh, and she began to crawl faster. Then, a boot stamped down hard on the middle of her back and crushed her against the floor.

The searing-hot muzzle of a shotgun was placed behind her ear and the asari realised she had been caught. Aria looked desperately around for a way to escape, then noticed a collection of steam valves above her. She screwed up as much energy as possible, and wrenched the pipes towards her. A gout of steam was directed straight into all four of the batarian's eyes, sending him staggering back with a bellow of agony. Aria rolled away from the steam, pulled out her pistol and fired half the clip into the commander's head and neck. The asari pushed herself to her feet and took aim at the last mercenary - a salarian - who dropped his rifle and threw his hands into the air as Aria stalked towards him.

"Please, I'll do anything," he whimpered. Aria ignored him and kicked him to the floor, then looked at some of the bodies around her.

"Anything?" Aria's mouth twisted in a grim smile. The mercenary nodded fearfully. "Lie down and keep still. Move and I'll shoot out your kneecaps."

Ten minutes later, Aria pushed the mercenary towards the bridge, rolling her eyes at the whimpering salarian.

"Stop crying, you might at least keep your dignity," she pushed him again, forcing him up against the locked door of the bridge and wincing a little at the pain in her shoulder. "Get me in there."

"Okay, okay!" The mercenary was shaking so much that he put in the wrong code.

"You have one more chance," Aria shot a bullet into the mercenary's knee, and he collapsed to the floor with a scream. "The next one goes in your head."

"What's… going on… out there?" An intercom crackled into life above them, heavy with static. Judging by the sound of the rebreather, it was the volus merchant she had seen at the docks in Illium.

"One. More. Chance," Aria repeated, pressing the barrel of her pistol into the mercenary's neck so that he whimpered with pain.

"It's Ilon, the boss sent me up," the mercenary said into the intercom, tears streaming down his cheeks as he tried to hold back the pain in his knee. Aria sighed and hit him across the head with her pistol to get him to hurry up. "He wanted me to give you a full report. In person."

"Fine… I'm unlocking the door," the volus wheezed. The light on the door flickered green, and Aria pushed the mercenary inside.

"Okay, here's what's happening," Aria shouted, firing a shot into the roof of the bridge as she strode in, dragging the salarian in by his collar. It had less than half the crew it should, most of them pale and sickly-looking salarians, who flinched at the sheer authority in the asari's voice. Like the rest of the ship, it was dark, dank and rusting. "Either you hand over the ship, or I pull the pins of all fifteen grenades on this kid and blow a fucking great hole in this ship."

"Which do you prefer Ilon?" Aria turned to the mercenary, who whimpered again. The grenades strapped around his body clinked as he shook with fear. Shaking her head at this pathetic sight, Aria shot out his other kneecap. A high-pitched scream followed the gunshot, and soon the mercenary was sobbing again. "Shut up! And stop crying, you look ridiculous."

A volus waddled over to the asari. "If we give you… the ship… you'll let us… live?"

"Just because I could pilot it myself," Aria glared down at the volus. "Doesn't mean I want to. You get me to Omega, I'll let you go."

The volus looked from Aria to the grenade-bound mercenary. "Fine… the ship… is yours."

"Excellent, set a course for Omega," Aria shot the salarian through the head. The crew looked at her, eyes wide with fear. "Now!"


	3. Omega

The freighter docked at Omega several hours after Aria took control of it. She had forced the ship's medic to extract the bullet from her shoulder at gunpoint soon after she took over it. Although medi-gel had been applied to the wound, it still felt stiff and a little numb. True to her word, Aria let the freighter carry on its journey. She had neither the time nor the ammunition to go around executing the rest of the crew. In any case, she thought, wandering through the slums of the station, she didn't need to draw any attention to herself right now.

Omega was almost identical to the freighter: dark, dank, and rusting. High above the crowds lights flickered on and off, creating a dim light that only just illuminated the dirty streets. The inhabitants of the slums were just as dirty as the floor they stood on. All of them bore the same grim expression and blank gaze, huddling around fires and gazing into it as if they wanted to end their lives there and then. The wave of refugees and mercenaries shuffled deeper into the dark streets. Aria noticed how everyone seemed to keep their head down and their eyes fixed to the floor. They had escaped, just like Aria, perhaps they sought a better life; or maybe they had been forced here by war or famine. They couldn't appreciate the opportunity this place had given them, Aria thought, looking disdainfully around at them. Anyone could reinvent themselves here, if they were willing to work hard enough for it. At the fringes of the crowd, she spotted a trio of mercenaries beating down a shopkeeper. Passing by the grim sight with something amounting to mere indifference, Aria carried on walking – the only head raised in the crowd.

She was deep in the slums now. Vorcha grinned from every corner, screeching and spitting as they fought over scraps of flesh. Most seemed to stay away from the asari, their eyes narrowing when they noticed the shotgun on her back and the pistol at her hip. From time to time, she let her biotics circulate around her to discourage any larger groups – walking as if wreathed in blue flame.

Aria eyed a group of vorcha leering at her from outside a nightclub. One of them nudged its friend as the asari walked past, and the other vorcha laughed. Aria sped up, striding down alleyways and pushing through shelters. She didn't know where she was going, but a pack of vorcha was definitely not something she wanted to deal with right now. She turned down a dark street between a ramshackle shelter and a shop selling suspicious cuts of meat, and suddenly the light at the end was blocked out by a dark figure. She spun on her heel, but was met with the leering gaze of half a dozen vorcha. Aria made to pull out her shotgun, but the vorcha were on her before she could even get a shot off.

"Get off me, you scum!" Aria shouted, punching away a vorcha and feeling its jaw fracture beneath her hand. This only seemed to piss it off, and the vorcha grabbed her flailing arm and held it down as the leader grinned widely. Suddenly, the lead vorcha's face was obliterated into a red mist. The other vorcha looked up, mouths gaping.

"Leave," a krogan voice ordered the vorcha. They hissed warily, two of them began to back away. The shotgun boomed again, and one of the vorcha was sent flying backwards with its chest torn open. "Now!"

Seeming to get the point, the remaining vorcha scrambled over one another. Aria heard them hissing and spitting at each other for some time after they left the alley. She felt a strong grip around her arm, and was suddenly lifted off her feet and placed – almost gently – on the ground. The krogan looked her up and down for a moment.

He was centuries old, his eyes speaking of a lifetime of war. His armour was a deep, blood red, and a turian skull had been crudely fixed to the chestplate. He continued to look at Aria for some time, until eventually she lost patience. "What do you want?"

"Most people would be grateful," the krogan cocked his head at her. "Vorcha packs eat around thirty percent of new arrivals."

"I'm not most people," Aria shook her arms out his grip and folded them across her chest, glaring at the krogan.

"Evidently," the krogan mused. "But, you're no different from the rest. You were drawn here, but you don't know why."

"Why I came here is none of your business," Aria turned to stalk away, but walked straight into a pair of grim-faced batarians. She looked back at the krogan, who was smiling in a slightly patronising way. "Who the fuck are you?"

"I am Kabaka Skorge," the krogan said proudly, then threw up his arms. "I _am _Omega."

"Well, Kabaka Skorge," Aria said in a voice laced with venom, striding forwards until they were almost nose to nose. "Get the fuck out of my way. I didn't need your help, I didn't ask for it, and I don't want it."

"You say that now, girl," the krogan said, letting her push past him and looking at her warily.

"And I'll keep saying it," Aria shouted back, her eyes glittering with malicious intent. With that she walked proudly into the streets of Omega, her head held high amongst the beaten-down crowds of the slums.


	4. A Plan Set in Motion

Aria stalked off the stage in a foul mood, slamming the door to Afterlife's dressing room after her. There were four of these in the nightclub, each containing between four and six girls. It was a tiny space for the girls that inhabited it, occupied by a few bunk beds in one dark corner and a long mirror and desk for the asari dancers to apply their makeup. One of them looked up at the sour expression on Aria's face as she strode past.

"Bad night?" Rana asked, examining her lipstick in the mirror. She was a young asari, and had been working there for several months before Aria joined. In the two months she had been there, Rana Jolanus was the closest thing Aria had to a friend.

"Fucking Titus doesn't know when to take a hint," Aria sulked, climbing up to her bunk and lying there. "Nearly ripped his mandibles off myself."

"Get Krule to deal with him," an older asari shrugged. Elon Foressa had been there the longest, close on a decade. Krule was the hulking krogan bouncer. Fiercely devoted to the dancers, he had killed patrons on occasion when they violated the 'look, don't touch'' rules.

"Why bother getting Krule to deal with him when I can do it myself?" Aria sighed, sinking into the thin mattress and its thin sheets. ""I fucking hate this place."

"So leave," Rana smiled at her reflection and danced over to Aria, moving in swift and fluid motions as if she were made of water. "Go somewhere else."

Aria snorted. "Like Carnus will let me."

"She's right Rana,"," Kira T'Rhon, another of the younger asari spoke from her bed below Aria. She was sitting cross-legged, sketching furiously on a datapad. "Remember when Illa tried leaving? She didn'tdidn't speak for two weeks afterwards."

"Which was Krule's doing," Aria said, her voice as sour as the look on her face.

"What do you mean?" Rana stopped dancing, her mouth gaping a little. "Krule wouldn't hurt us, would he?"

"Krogan urges," Aria said darkly. The door banged open and a turian strode in flanked by a batarian and the very krogan they had been talking about.

"Jolana, T'Loak, Foressa, your pay just came in," the turian threw a few credit chits onto the dirty white table below the mirror. Aria scowled at her employer's back, who was busy distributing credits and pinning up the rota for next week on the dressing room door. He turned around, catching her mid-scowl. "Hey, you want to sleep out on the streets T'Loak?"

"Well who knows, Carnus,"," Aria sneered. ""It might be cleaner out there than in here."

"That's half your pay," the turian swept up a credit chit, then turned to the other dancers. "What are you looking at? T'Rhon, you're supposed to be on stage now!"

Kira threw the sketchpad onto her bed and dashed towards the door. Carnus stopped her and slapped her hard across the face. "Don't"Don't be late again!"

Aria saw tears in the young asari's eyes as she sprinted into the club.

"What the fuck Carnus?" Aria shouted, swinging her legs over the edge of her bed and dropping to the floor. ""What did you do that for?"

"She was late,"," Carnus shrugged. "I'm making sure she doesn't do it again."

"You can't just hit her because of that," Aria glared at him. Krule looked stupidly at the turian, as if he felt he should intervene. Carnus waved him away, and the krogan lumbered out of the dressing room, the batarian at his heels.

"I think you need to remember who runs this club," the turian snarled back, striding forward until he was right in her face. ""I _own_ her, T'Loak, just like I own you. I do what the fuck I want with the things I own."

"You might think you own me, Carnus," Aria hissed back, her eyes narrowing at the turian. ""But you'll never fucking touch me."

"That's another quarter, T'Loak," Carnus grabbed another chit of the table. "Any more outbursts like that and you can fuck off back to whatever scum-infested planet you came from."

He left, and Aria wrenched off her skimpy dancing outfit and pulled on her clothes. Throwing her jacket over one shoulder she stalked out of the dressing room, snatching up her remaining chit on the way. The other asari went back to gossiping amongst themselves. Despite promising never to sink to dancing, here she was, in the scummiest nightclub on the wretched station that was Omega.

She kicked a piece of metal along as she wandered aimlessly through the streets, her head bowed like everyone else around her. Aria scowled again and kicked the piece of metal aside. She had only started working at Afterlife to pay her way, but she had ended up trapped in a vicious cycle of scraping a living on that fucking pole.

""Rough day?" Aria looked up, and spotted Skorge leaning against a nearby wall.

""What do you want?" Aria glared at the krogan.

"I want to propose a deal," Skorge pushed himself off the wall, and beckoned for the asari to walk with him. Aria stayed put. "You want to keep swinging on that pole all night for scraps then it's no problem of mine."

"I told you I don't need your help," she said firmly.

"Of course you don't!" Skorge loomed over her. "But I own this station. I have contacts you could use. Muscle to make the transition seamless."

"What transition?" Aria's eyes narrowed. ""What are you proposing?"

"Walk with me," the krogan turned away, striding ponderously down the street, his hands clasped in front of him. Curious, Aria followed, taking two steps to each of the krogan's. "You said yourself that you weren't ordinary. I want you to prove it."

"I don't need to prove anything to _you_," Aria sneered. ""I can take over that place myself."

"Felix Carnus has some very influential backers…"

"Then I get my own," a plan was forming in Aria's mind. A risky one, but if it paid off…

"Afterlife is controlled by the Blood Pack," Skorge looked at her seriously. "Vorcha and krogan, not the nice kind like me either!"

"Who leads them?" Aria pressed him.

"A battlemaster from Clan Urdnot," Skorge smiled a little. "A tough bastard, like me, Urdnot Wrex."

Aria froze. ""What did you say?"

"You know him?" Skorge cocked his wide head at her.

"We've met," Aria thought back. It had been around a century ago. She'd known some rather compromising information about a volus diplomat, and Wrex had been the one hired to deal with her. "Different name. Different life."

"Then you know why it's a difficult task to go up against him," Skorge continued walking. "You need to convince him that it's in his best interests to let you take over Afterlife. You need muscle, and you need backers."

"Then I'll get them,"," Aria said firmly, pulling on her jacket and turning up the collar. "And I'll do it without your help."

"Of course you will," Skorge smiled patronisingly.

Aria scowled at him and stalked away from him. The citizens of Omega stepped aside at the look on her face. She held her head high amongst the crowds, one amongst many downturned faces. Skorge watched her go, curious about this jumpy little upstart. He could see she was destined for great things, but how great, and when?

One question rose above all others: how long before she turned on him?


	5. A Reluctant Alliance

"Aretha T'Cosa to see Kun Floas," the asari looked down at the receptionist.

"Do you have an appointment?" the receptionist, a bored-looking asari, asked without looking up at her.

Aria leaned over her. "Would I be here if I didn't?"

"I think he's expecting you," the receptionist said a little shakily, looking up at Aria.

"You think?" Aria placed her hands on the desk and glared at the receptionist.

"He's expecting you," the receptionist repeated, her hands twisting nervously.

"Thank you," Aria replied in a sickly sweet voice and opened the door to the volus financier's office.

The window looked out towards the open expanse of the Omega Nebula. Aria could see the blue-lit mass relay in the distance, and next to it the red glow of the Omega 4 – the infamous relay no ship had ever returned from. Kun Floas was sitting at his desk, the stubby legs barely reaching the floor even though all the furniture was around a foot shorter than usual.

"Aretha T'Cosa… I understand you are… interested in procuring… a financial investment?" Floas wheezed. He was reading a datapad, and didn't look up when Aria entered the room.

"That's correct," Aria sat down in the only normally-sized chair in the office and crossed her legs.

"I make it my business… not to ask why…" Floas still didn't look at her. "But the amount that you ask for…"

"I was told you were the person to go to if I wanted a significant investment with no questions asked," Aria stood up and walked towards the door. "I see my information was faulty."

"Wait Miss T'Cosa," she had gotten his attention. A smile twisted one side of the asari's mouth. "I never said… you had been refused… but if you cross me…"

"I'm not an idiot," Aria replied, glancing at him over her shoulder. "You just get me the funds."

After she left the office, Aria opened her omnitool's contact list and established a connection with Jona Sederis. Her fellow asari had been scouting Illium and its surrounding planets for mercenaries that would prove to be loyal, effective, and discreet. Aria had been hoping to secure a contingent of asari commandos, although they were hard to come by.

"Jona, give me some news."

"I'm sending seventy asari and thirty salarians your way, T'Loak," Jona replied.

"Salarians?" Aria frowned. "Fine, they'll do. I need more though. I'll send you a list of commandos to follow up on. See what you can dig up about them."

"All the ex-commandos have been snatched up by merc groups on Illium," Sederis said. "They're getting difficult to find."

"I don't care what you have to do to get them, Sederis," Aria stepped into the elevator. "Just get them to work for me. Off to double their contracts if you need to."

"I don't think –"

"I'm the one that does the thinking, Sederis," Aria hissed, a blue glow spreading over her body. "Do what I tell you, or I'll get someone to replace you."

"Fine, I'll see –" Aria cut off the connection before Jona could finish speaking. She took a deep breath and her biotics began to recede.

She left the office and took a cab back to Afterlife, brooding on how she could take down Carnus and his operation. She had finished her shift a few hours ago, and felt dead on her feet however. Planning to take down Carnus was only making her feel even more exhausted. Krule eyed her from his corner of the nightclub when she entered. His dull, expressionless face sank into the shadows when the krogan realised she was looking at him.

Aria narrowed her eyes in suspicion, and returned to the dressing room. Rana was there, humming to herself as she practiced her dancing. She smiled at Aria as she passed, who returned it half-heartedly. Just as she went to climb up to her bed, Aria stopped, her foot on the first rung. Kira's sketchpad was still in the same place it had been the night before, and the sheet was still balled up at the foot of her bed. Aria had been at Afterlife long enough to know that Kira was meticulously neat and tidy. She spun away from the bed and checked the weekly rota on the back of the door. Elon was due to be dancing now, and Rana was on that night. Kira's name was nowhere to be seen.

"Have you seen Kira today?" Aria asked Rana, who was bending herself into shapes that were painful just to look at.

"No, Carnus said she was taking a few days off," the young asari replied. She was supporting herself on her forearms, with her legs stretching up towards the ceiling. "Why?"

"No reason," Aria bit her lip and climbed up to her bed, considering her options as she lay there. She thought about the krogan, Skorge. But that would be as good as admitting she had been wrong, that she couldn't do this herself.

But then again, a handful of asari and salarians wouldn't be enough to challenge the Blood Pack. Certainly not with Wrex at their head. She had come across the Blood Pack more than a few times in the two centuries or so she had spent as a mercenary, and only consisted of krogan and vorcha. They weren't subtle in their work, aiming instead for maximum carnage and violence in whatever they did.

Realising what she had to do, Aria bit so hard into her lip that she began to draw blood. Wiping it away, she pushed herself up and slid off the bed. Taking her jacket from a peg on the wall, she threw over her shoulders and wrenched the door open. Krule was still watching her from the corner, a stupid grin spread across his face.

Wandering through the streets around Afterlife, Aria realised that she had no idea how to find Skorge. It seemed that no matter the time of day, Omega's streets were always packed with an all-manner of merchants, conmen and beggars. Aria pushed each of them away with the same hard look, one that made them shrink back under their dark metal canopies. It told them that she wasn't prey for their schemes. She was a predator amongst the crowd, a wolf amongst the sheep.

As she rounded a corner, Aria noticed a thickset batarian watching her. She recognised him from the vorcha attack from her first day on Omega. He worked for Skorge. Aria ducked down an empty street, curious to see if this was pure coincidence or if he was following her.

A krogan was waiting for her, but it wasn't Skorge. A stupid grin spread across Krule's face, and he pulled a shotgun from his back. Aria's biotics flared bright blue, and she lifted him off the ground and threw the krogan into the street behind her. Blood pounding in her ears, Aria stalked after Krule, who was trying to get to his feet. She reached out with her biotics and wrenched the krogan back towards her, slamming him hard into the ground.

"You think I'm just going to lie down?" Aria shouted at Krule, who was breathing heavily. She threw the krogan into a wall and held him there. "You think I'm just some little bitch you can wipe away?"

"T'Loak, please!" Krule whined, completely powerless under the sheer force of Aria's biotic field.

"That's not going to cut it, Krule!" Aria slammed him face first into the ground. The crack of the krogan's neck echoed around the silent street. The asari glared around at the crowd, her body still wreathed in blue. They began to back away, except for the batarian she had noticed earlier. He stood with his arms folded, an ugly smile twisting his face.

"Tell Skorge I want his people on my back when I take Afterlife," she said quietly to the batarian. "And tell him to be ready in two days."


	6. The War Begins

Aria leaned against the wall of the docking bay and scowled. Sederis was over an hour late, and right now she wanted to shoot the asari. Or tear her in half with her biotics. Sederis might be an excellent commando and biotic, but she was also unreliable and slightly unhinged – even by Aria's standards. Unfortunately, Sederis was her only contact outside Omega, so for the time being she was stuck with her. The crowd was roughly pushed aside, and Jona walked into view with a handful of asari and salarians behind her. They were all heavily armed and armoured, so clearly her financier's money was being put to good use. Unless this was all that Sederis had manage to scrape together.

"Sederis," Aria's gaze drifted over to the asari, who stood proudly at the head of the group. "You're late."

"We had some trouble getting off Illium. Something to do with the authorities clamping down on mercenaries," Sederis said, folding her arms and glaring at Aria. "A lot of complaints about 'gunfights in the streets'. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

"How many did you bring?" Aria ignored her and began pushing through the crowd.

"Twenty asari, ten salarians, and a few turians. The rest will be here soon."

"They should have been here today, Jona," she said coldly.

"Well I can't help it if _your_ antics are causing the port authorities to search every fucking ship leaving Illium."

"I don't ask you to do a lot," Aria pursed her lips. "But if you can't find a way around a little squeeze from the port authorities of _Illium_ of all places, maybe I should be asking other people to do it."

"I've got it under control, Aria," Sederis said quickly. "I just need a little more time."

"Time we don't have, Jona."

"Why the rush?"

Aria laughed humourlessly. "Like I'm going to tell you."

She led the group into Skorge's headquarters – an abandoned warehouse deep in the belly of Omega. The station was even darker and more decrepit down here. Vorcha leered from every corner, shying away as Aria drew near. Every now and then the flickering lights shone on the grim sight of a body. As they passed an unlit alleyway, someone cried out at them, shrieking at the group for help. Aria didn't even spare them a look.

A surly krogan held up a hand as Aria approached the warehouse. Jona and her mercenaries stopped. Aria took a few more paces forward and stood almost face-to-face with the krogan, who leered down at her with a hand tight on his shotgun, his red eyes gleaming. In the windows of the warehouse above her, Aria could see more krogan watching them.

"Be a good boy and tell Skorge I'm here," she said, giving the krogan a cold smile.

The krogan didn't move. Aria made to move past him, but an arm swept out to block her path. In one swift movement, Aria flared her biotics and threw the krogan against the wall of the warehouse and held him in place. As soon as the krogan had been pushed against the wall Aria could hear the sound of weapons being readied, the shouts of the mercenaries as they targeted the krogan in the windows, and then the bellow of a krogan.

"T'Loak, what do you think you're doing?" Skorge burst through the door in a fury. "You'll bring the whole damn Blood Pack down on us!"

"I'm giving your man here a little lesson in _following orders_," Aria explained. She released the krogan and he fell to the ground with a groan.

"These are my men," Skorge growled. "They don't take orders from you."

"Well, they'd better learn," Aria pushed past the krogan and entered the warehouse. "My people will deal with the subtle arts – assassination, sabotage – I just need you to be the muscle."

"Now you'll have to understand something, T'Loak," Skorge followed her through the door. "If we're working together, you'll take your orders from me."

She didn't say anything, instead looking around at the warehouse. It had been fortified so that the only entrance was the one they'd come through. Krogan and batarians patrolled along catwalks two floors above them, with guards stationed at the windows every few metres. The floor was a hive of activity, with crates being shifted across the concrete floor by packs of vorcha overseen by krogan drivers. Weapons, munitions, eezo, Red Sand, it was all here. A goldmine of credits. Aria licked her lips at the potential in this place.

"Is that clear?"

Aria gave the krogan a cold glare, then nodded.

"Good."

Skorge led Aria and her mercenaries up a set of metal stairs and onto first and into what must have been an office of some sort. A hologram of Omega was displayed on a desk in the middle of the room, with a large chunk of the station highlighted in red. Skorge was deep in conversation with a salarian tech next to it. Aria turned back to Sederis and her mercenaries.

"Get them settled in, we could be here for a while."

"Aria, what's going on?"

"You don't need to know right now," Aria said quietly. "But start putting out feelers. I want to know who the players are in his gang."

"Fine."

Jona led her people back down the stairs and began talking rapidly with a batarian. Aria turned back to Skorge, who had finished speaking with the salarian, and was looking at her with one of his beady red eyes. Ignoring the look, Aria walked around the hologram until she was opposite the krogan.

"What am I looking at?"

"Omega," Skorge grunted. Aria rolled her eyes. The krogan pointed a claw to the large chunk of red. "The Blood Pack owns about thirty percent of the station right now, and they're taking more every week."

"So when do you make your move?" Aria asked. She fiddled with the console and the hologram zoomed in on Afterlife.

"Wrex will leave the station in a couple of weeks for a Crush on Tuchanka," Skorge rumbled. He reset the hologram to show the whole of Omega again. A large chunk of the red patch began to flash. "When he leaves, _we_ will begin the attack. I'll give you half a dozen krogan to take Afterlife, we'll have them stretched thin so they shouldn't be particularly interested in defending a nightclub."

"Six krogan?" Aria snorted, she pointed to the door. "There's at least a hundred krogan in that warehouse out there and you're giving me _six_?"

"We're hitting the Blood Pack with everything we've got, T'Loak," Skorge indicated the flashing area. "Do you know what this is?"

She sighed and folded her arms. "Just get on with it and tell me."

"Every day, the Blood Pack shifts huge quantities of eezo and Red Sand into this area. It's the heart of their organisation, and we're going to rip it out."

"Sounds like fun," Aria cocked her head to one side. "But there's something you're not telling me."

"As soon as they hear we're making a move from this district, they'll shut up shop and close the blast doors," the krogan grunted, his red eyes swinging in her direction again. "I need someone on the inside. Someone they don't know. Someone they'll never expect."

"Someone like me?"

"Someone like you."

"And what about Afterlife?" Aria leaned on the table. "I was promised that… place."

"Once you let my people in, you're free to take whatever you want," Skorge leaned towards her, his great mass blocking out the thin tube light. "As long as you remember who you're working for."


End file.
